A short while after the Israeli tanks pulled back from Gaza's
frontline village of Zanna on Wednesday morning, residents returned to
dig out the dead buried within the rubble of their homes, rescue their
surviving livestock and see if their houses were still standing.

The
village is the scene of some of the heaviest ground fighting of the
16-day conflict and marks the deepest point penetrated by Israeli armour
and infantry. It has been too dangerous a place to enter for more than
seven days.

In the first stage of the conflict, the village was
pummelled with Israeli shelling and air strikes. More recently, it
provided a theatre for fierce gun battles between Hamas and Israeli fighters.

A woman in Zanna is overcome by the destruction in the village following
heavy tank fire and air strikes over almost a week: photo by Harald
Henden/VG, 23 July 2014

As
the tanks rolled back on Wednesday, bringing respite from the shells,
drone strikes, machine-gun fire and missiles, families cautiously
returned home.

The Israeli tanks, residents warned sharply, might
have pulled back for now but they were still only 700 metres away,
hidden in the trees of the farmland. Israeli shells still boomed nearby.
They advised not to remain for long.

Zanna,
a rural community on the eastern outskirts of Khan Younis, is less than
two miles from Gaza's southern border with Israel.

Destruction
in the village of Zanna, eastern Khan Younis, seen after Israeli tanks
pulled out in the morning following a night of intense bombardment: photo by Hazem Balousha, 23 July 2014

The
numbers of people killed and injured there are still unknown. In the
nearby village of Khuzaar hundreds remained trapped on Wednesday.

Zanna's
streets bore testament to the violence that has engulfed it. One
resident, Islam Abu Jamaa, picked her way among the fallen cables,
rubble and shell casings. A young woman covered with a white headscarf,
she halted only for a moment to answer questions before bursting into
frightened tears. "I went to see if my house had been damaged," she
explained. "But I could not see it. It is gone. It has completely
vanished!"

As she hurried off in the direction of Khan Younis,
less than a mile or so back along the main road to safety, a man passed
struggling with a rescued sheep cradled in his arms.

A villager attempts to rescue a sheep during Israel attack on frontline
area of Zanna (Khan Younis), two miles from the border with Israel: photo by Hazem Balousha, 23 July 2014

Eight Hamas
militants were killed, according to a Palestinian health official, in
the fierce battles in and around Zanna, where, on Tuesday night,
militants deployed rocket propelled grenades and machine guns against
Israeli troops, reportedly killing one Israeli soldier.

Aziza
Msabah described the battle to the Associated Press: "The airplanes and
air strikes all around us." Bombs and shells were hitting the houses,
"which are collapsing upon us".The Guardian came across a scene
that supported Msabah's account during a visit to the battle site
Wednesday morning. Scarcely a building had escaped damage. Water storage
tanks had been shot at from the roofs, and the streets were pock-marked
with mortar detonations.

Destruction
in the village of Zanna, eastern Khan Younis, seen after Israeli tanks
pulled out in the morning following a night of intense bombardment: photo by Hazem Balousha, 23 July 2014

One house had been reduced to a group of
concrete pillars. Others had been left as little more than gutted
shells, some were now just piles of shattered concrete.

In the
village a piece of abandoned Israeli military equipment lay beached and
abandoned in the middle of a road; a small towed-carrier of some sort,
perhaps for ammunition, its tyres had been shot out.

A man dressed
in black and holding a walkie-talkie –- a Hamas fighter it seemed -–
stepped in front of the marooned vehicle to prevent pictures being
taken. Several other men emerged from the battle-scarred buildings, some
dirty with dust and, although not visibly armed, quick to shield their
faces from the cameras.

Remnant of Israeli shell lies on the ground in the shattered village of Zanna, eastern Khan Younis, seen after Israeli tanks
pulled out in the morning following a night of intense bombardment: photo by Hazem Balousha, 23 July 2014

During this ground war, villages like
Zanna, in farmland close to the border, have been at the centre of the
heaviest fighting. These are places which journalists, by and large,
have been unable to reach and which people, trapped by the relentless
fighting, have been unable to flee from.

A statement released by
the Israeli military later confirmed that, in the past two days,
"violent combat" took place on the eastern edges of Khan Younis.

"Our
forces penetrated a number of neighbourhoods of Khan Younis and the
surrounding villages in order to destroy arms caches used to attack our
soldiers and rocket stockpiles used in the preceding days to fire at
Israel.

Destruction
in the village of Zanna, eastern Khan Younis, seen after Israeli tanks
pulled out in the morning following a night of intense bombardment: photo by Hazem Balousha, 23 July 2014

"A unit of Israeli paratroopers was also active searching
in Khan Younis and the surrounding area the previous night for tunnel
entrances."

The statement added that soldiers had come under fire
from rocket-propelled grenades fired from a mosque, injuring several of
their number including a sergeant, Eviatar Turgeman, who later died from
his wounds. Residents added that the assault involved Israeli tanks,
bulldozers and mortar teams.

The physical evidence suggests that
fighters from Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups took up positions
in the village houses, the walls of which have been smashed and
perforated by heavy cannon fire.

A boy stands in the ruins of the shattered frontline village of Zanna (Khan Younis), two miles
from the border with Israel, after massive Israeli bombardment:
photo by Hazem Balousha, 23 July 2014

Most of those living in the
village are members of the extended Abu Jamaa family -– 28 of whom were
killed at the weekend in a single air strike at the height of the
assault.

Mohammad Abu Jamaa examined one of the ruined houses. The
Israeli tanks came to the open area near the border first, he said,
before rolling into Zanna.

"This is the first time in seven days
we have been able to come back to our houses. Those in the centre are
all destroyed or damaged" he said. "I am a farmer. I keep chickens. When
I heard the tanks had left, I rushed here to water them because they
have not been watered for four days. But half of them are dead."

A man stands in the ruins of the shattered frontline village of Zanna (Khan Younis), two miles
from the border with Israel, after massive Israeli bombardment:
photo by Hazem Balousha, 23 July 2014

In
the neighbouring area of Abassan Jadeed, a few hundred people gathered
at a dusty cemetery to bury four bodies dug out of rubble earlier in
the day -- among them was Khalil Abu Jamaa, who was aged 75.

In the crowd of mourners was a thin middle-aged man in a black robe who would only give a nickname for himself -- Abu Mohammad.

He
said: "I left on the first day [of the assault]. I left just wearing
what I am wearing today. I was in my home when a shell landed next to
us. We decided to leave and when we were walking out we heard the
bullets coming past us. We were only civilians. I did not see any
fighters ..."

The shattered frontline village of Zanna (Khan Younis), two miles from the border with Israel, after massive Israeli bombardment:
photo by Hazem Balousha, 23 July 2014

Hearing this account, a young man standing in the
crowd exploded with rage. Fellow mourners were forced to intervene to
prevent a physical fight.

"Of course there were fighters there!
They were protecting the people!" the younger man shouted in fury before
being hustled away.

As the Guardian left, five more human bodies
were discovered amid the rubble of Zanna. They, perhaps, will not be
the last to be dug out of the ruins of these Gaza villages.

Palestinian
photojournalist Hazem Balousha in Gaza; Balousha holds a BA in
Journalism, an MA in International Relations, and contributes to many news outlets including the Guardian and DW Arabic: photographer unknown via Hazem Balousha, 23 July 2014

Mock coffins are readied in the West Bank city of Ramallah for a
22 July protest in solidarity with Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the
Gaza Strip: photo by Shadi Hatem / APA images, 22 July 2014

1 comment:

These images can't have been easy to capture. The scenes now follow a course we recognize from memories of pictures of conquering armies laying waste. Laying waste -- that is, everything down to the rebar. From the POV of the targets, one imagines a terrible Catch-22 kind of circular meta-logic. Hammered if you stay, pounded as you go, annihilated when you get there.